A fried of mine a few years back wore leather before textile was around... even in Canada he said there were days that you lost a few pounds sweating... someone asked why he wore all that ...and if it was hot
His reply was YES but I'm allergic to asphalt.... If I fall I break out in a bad rash!
Love the Canadian humor (EH?)
:grin:
I just found this thread and it's great! I need one of the laminated cards too!
91STride shared a bit of this story from my youth. This event made a strong impression on me so I'd like to share... the rest of the story...
College in Vancouver, BC and the summer of 1983 was unusually hot. One 38 degrees C (100F) day, I'm out by my motorcycle, a 1982 Honda V45 Sabre (red - of course) suiting up with full face helmet, black leather jacket, jeans, boots & leather gloves and sweating off the pounds when Art, one of my class-mates (wearing 3/4 helmet, running shoes, shorts, and tank top) asks me "aren't you hot - why do you wear all that stuff?". I say, "yes I'm hot but I wear it because of allergies" he gives me the deer-in-the-headlights look. "I break out in a bad rash if I fall down without it". Art laughs and tells me I just need to ride carefully. Two weeks later he was riding home after classes when a lady in a cage turned left in front of him and he couldn't be careful fast enough. He was doing about 35mph when he hit the pavement on his belly. He didn't have any broken bones but he had road-rash on his toes, knees, thighs, belly, fore arms, elbows, hands and even lost his nipples. When he returned to school I didn't say anything about protective gear since anything I might say would just add insult to injury. Later he came up to me and agreed it is much better to be hot than rashed!
Not so funny but it sure helped me stick with ATGATT.
I still have the black leather jacket but for some strange reason it shrunk
Today I ride with armored mesh pants and Olympia AST HiViz jacket. I get a lot of remarks like "wait till I get my sunglasses on!", "where do you hide the battery pack for that thing?" and "did you buy that thing at a fireman's yard sale?"
I guess since I don't have loud pipes I need a loud jacket to save lives